Two Kamloops warming stations opening for folks fighting the cold

ASK Wellness will be making sure everyone in Kamloops is able to keep warm this week as wintery-weather is in the forecast.

Two stations will be in operation, one downtown and the other on the North Shore, starting tomorrow, Nov. 7, said chief executive officer Bob Hughes, with ASK Wellness.

Hughes remembered during an especially cold spell in January 2021, there was one weekend with “Just horrendous weather, it was minus 30 (degrees Celsius) with wind.”

Fortunately there were warming stations active at the time – and that made him realize just how crucial they are, because there were no other public facilities to warm up in. Not even the library was open, he said.

“When we get like this we need to have places to shelter from acute weather,” Hughes said. “It reached a point where some folks are so cold and unwell, they need to come inside.”

READ MORE: First significant snow wreaks havoc on roads across Thompson-Okanagan

The two locations are at the Crossroads Inn building on 569 Seymour St. and at the Spero House building on 317 Tranquille Rd.

There should be more shelters in Kamloops to meet the need, Hughes said, and the warming station are serving a temporary "band-aid" solution to keeping people warm. 

Both stations will remain open for 24-hour a day until Nov. 11, he said.

The Canadian Mental Health Association left non-profits scrambling as it decided late last month to back out of its deal to operate two emergency winter shelters this season.

READ MORE: Kamloops non-profits blindsided by CMHA decision not to operate shelters

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